Beach Umbrella

As supporting feature to Rat Film, Plokta presents:

“Should I classify the luxuriant growth of objects as we do a flora or fauna, complete with tropical and glacial species, sudden mutations, and varieties threatened by extinction?”

In this intriguing short, Sjoerd ter Borg & Mark Jan van Tellingen interrogate structures of identifying, valuing and categorising everyday items. Set against a voice-over adapted from Jean Baudrillard, the film’s images focus on one humble object: the beach umbrella. An integral part of the urban landscape of Seoul, the umbrella is here repeatedly locked onto and coded by Google Street View algorithms. The resulting montage affords an entrancing glimpse into a complex ecology of datafication, consumption and surveillance on Seoul’s streets.